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We have a couple more false starts before we make our way along the path through the shrubbery beyond the side of the castle. Twice more we set off and both times we’re stopped by van drivers with clipboards and sheafs of papers and parcels to add to the pile in the castle hallway.
As we finally head off Merwyn’s skipping along at my side, his tail waving like a flag, it’s as if he’s decided that now he’s officially on the guest list he might as well look like he owns the place. I pull my hat down more securely to keep out the freezing wind gusts, and get a first glimpse of the coach house buildings through the foliage. They’re long, low and barn-like, but with their dark slate roofs rimy with salt and the late afternoon sunlight reflecting off the shimmering silver of the sea, they make a dramatic group against the fading sky. By the time Bill’s pushing open the wide door at the end of the longest building, he’s still chuntering.
In Chamonix Will was good tempered, and in my head that’s how he stayed. I can’t help being taken aback by how grouchy the passing years have made him.
As he flicks on the lights, he lets out a sigh. ‘Okay, knock yourself out.’
I’m staring around a wide space lit by the flat glare of strip lights, up to the rafters of a high slanting roof, taking in shelves full of boxes and lumpy tarpaulins. ‘Go on then, show me what’s under the dust sheets.’
He sniffs as he lifts up a corner. ‘Bits of furniture, general rubbish, they’re hardly going to satisfy a high end customer are they?’ His eyes flash. ‘And there’s definitely no child equipment either.’
As I swoop in on an ancient leather armchair, I can’t believe what I’m looking at. ‘How many of these have you got?’ I’m holding my breath, hoping there might be a pair to go either side of one of the fireplaces, or to tuck away to make a cosy corner in one of the tower alcoves.
Bill frowns. ‘There’s loads, but none of them match and they’re all scuffed.’ He’s saying it like that’s a bad thing.
‘That’s not a scuff, it’s patina.’ I lean forwards and breathe in the deep waxy smell of the hide. ‘Better still, Libby’s going to love them.’
‘And some are velvet, not leather.’
I try not to melt into a silent pool of stylist happiness. ‘And what’s in the boxes?’
Bill takes a couple down and pulls them open. ‘Mismatched crockery and old jars, the kind of rubbish that’s no use at all.’
I’m staring down at the prettiest assortment of plates and dishes but now I know they’re here I don’t need to keep contradicting him. ‘And you’re sure it’s okay to use this stuff?’ As I take in a nod I can hardly believe my luck.
Further along the shelves we find hanging candle chandeliers, a whole load of plant pots, storm lanterns, ancient kitchen utensils, old baths and enamel jugs. Propped up against the walls there are step ladders, hundreds of pictures and photographs in frames, endless boxes of books.
I reckon this lot will more than take care of the accessorising, but I’m not going to put him out of his misery yet. ‘The stuff here will go part way to saving your neck, what about the rest?’
‘There’s more?’
Okay, I’m mean, but I’m truly enjoying another appalled squeal. ‘Even if we raid the grounds for twigs, we’re still short of Christmas trees, candles and a million tea lights.’
He lets out a groan. ‘The Facebook ad was one desperate moment – I never thought anyone would actually bite.’
I’m not interested in details – he got himself into this mess, now he needs to sort it. ‘Well, we’re onto damage limitation now. So do you have a budget?’
His voice is dry. ‘Not really.’
I’m searching his face for clues as he swallows. ‘Not really, because you haven’t thought about it, or not really, meaning there’s no money?’ He doesn’t look dodgy, just beaten.
‘Realistically I can throw a hundred at it.’
‘Jeez, Bill.’ It comes out as a shriek.
‘And I have a mate with a Christmas tree plantation, he might give us some mis-shapes.’ He takes in my horrified look. ‘Or a discount.’
He’s taken Libby’s money with no plans to put in the extra effort and he’s not getting away with this. But there’s a flip side too. His accidental advert ended up giving me my chance to make Christmas wonderful for everyone. As Fliss knows, I’ve jumped at the chance to prove that everything that I touch doesn’t have to turn sour. The accident happened at the end of a horrible year that began with George walking out. Then the whole of last December was a blur of hospitals and police interviews and Michael’s funeral and visits to the scene of the accident. When so many things have gone wrong I’m starting to feel that it’s all down to me. Being part of a lovely Christmas, if only from the outside, would give me hope that I’m not destined to wreck and ruin everything I go near. But that’s the last thing I’d ever tell anyone else. Especially Bill.
‘Lucky for you, I know all the best fairy light suppliers and their discount codes. We should get onto that straight away.’
He’s wincing. ‘Like … now?’
As for me inviting myself into his bedroom this soon, I’m going to have to grit my teeth and go with it. And pretend he looks like Quasimodo.
Friday
13th December
5. (#ulink_0fa191e4-cc79-5ab3-9e25-11e82e889301)
Make it a December (#ulink_0fa191e4-cc79-5ab3-9e25-11e82e889301)
to remember (#ulink_0fa191e4-cc79-5ab3-9e25-11e82e889301)
When I’m woken by hammering on my bedroom door on Friday morning, it’s so early that when I pull back the curtains it’s not even light enough to see the sea.
‘If you want to choose trees, I’m leaving in five.’
‘And I love you too, Bill.’ I don’t. At all.
Despite my groans and Merwyn’s yawns and dirty looks we pull on our clothes and do a dazed run-in-the-dark round the lawn. By the time Bill’s battered pick-up rattles to a halt by the front door we’re standing, backs to the gale, coffee in hand, watching the dawn light send luminous pink streaks across the pale grey sky.
Bill throws the door open. ‘I brought the Landy, hop in.’
I lift Merwyn up into the cab and heave myself in after him. ‘So what are we listening to? Apart from the banging of metal panels, I mean.’
Bill pulls out of the entrance gateway onto the lane. ‘Pirate FM’s obscure festive half hour, it’s quite a challenge to hear the awful tunes that didn’t make it. We’ll be there in forty.’
My eyes are barely open, but as the road winds back to hug the coast I’m sitting back basking in the sound of some band singing about Puppies for Christmas,and it’s magical to see the breakers crashing relentlessly up the beach as dawn lightens to day.
Bill finally showed me to his room and the wifi yesterday evening, after my dinner of Aga baked potatoes. It’s on the ground floor, tucked away beyond the stairs that lead up to mine and as empty and pared back as the rest of the place. If I was hoping for a glimpse of the real guy in there, I was truly disappointed. I can completely see that he’d strip back the rest of the castle so the stags don’t crush the ornaments as they fall over, but in his room you’d have thought there’d be a flash of something – anything – more individual. I understand not everyone wants to be like Fliss and I and have every drunken moment from our youth emblazoned across the walls to remind us of the fun times we had and how crazy and alive we used to be. But there aren’t any photos or any personal touches at all even on Bill’s bedside table. No birthday cards, not a single postcard or memento to express that he has a private life or indeed a past. There’s nothing. It’s as if his backstory and history have been completely wiped out. There isn’t as much as a paperback here, not even a print on the wall. It’s as if someone’s come and very carefully wiped away every trace of his past.
I’m not being nosey, or judging here. I’m just really puzzled that someone who I once glimpsed as such an outgoing, fun and rounded guy should be living this stark and sterile existence. I mean, I did get a glimpse in his suitcase in Chamonix, it was as full of shit as mine, his room too. So it’s not that he’s an anal tidying minimalist who travels through life with nothing, because he’s not. Even if he did think he was better than people, he didn’t deserve this. There has to be some rational explanation for the vacuum, something more than the castle being newly converted.
Whatever the explanation, he didn’t touch on it last night. He was in and out and mostly left me clutching my laptop, perching on the edge of his king sized bed which is so high I only had one toe on the floor. Obviously Merwyn insisted on coming too, so we took his furry tree rug for him to lie on and had to promise he wouldn’t try to clean his face on the pristine pale grey duvet cover.
The moment I put in the password a hundred emails from Libby pinged in, all of them delivery notifications, and all duplicated in the matching texts that popped up on my phone too. Then I rushed off a Facebook message to flag up to Fliss and Libby that the interiors we’ve been mooning over are the wrong ones and that what we have here is more-tower-less-frills. Then I called Fliss a few minutes later, certain by half past eight her kids would be asleep. They weren’t.
I love Oscar and Harriet to bits, but they’re the kind of insomniac babies who drink milk non stop, scream really loudly and never close their eyes. The theory that second babies are easier hasn’t worked for Fliss either, which is why popping out number two has almost pushed her over the edge. Oscar was easily three before I saw him fully zonked out and that was only with chickenpox and after Calpol, which if you don’t know is squirted into their mouth from a syringe, and the baby equivalent of a tranquiliser dart. Fliss swears all that saved her as a mum is the phone app she works with her nose at the same time as clutching both kids, which reads advice out loud and plays soothing tunes.
If Fliss ever actually gets her nose onto her phone when I ring her, there’s a five second window to talk, so when she answered I didn’t mess about.
Unlike her babies, she always sounds super-sleepy. ‘… Ivy … fab … just feeding Harriet …’ Nothing new there then.
I fired out the words ‘… stylish … stony … sparse … small-but-snug …’ then threw ‘staff’ in as an inspired afterthought. Then I blurted. ‘I’ve taken full charge of the deccies too.’ And damn for putting my head on the block there.
I could hear Fliss musing over the sound of Harriet’s sucking noises and Oscar banging the life out of what might have been a drum, or possibly the patio doors. ‘Sparse … how?’
Another damn for that one. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be full by the time you arrive.’
‘Brill … we’ll see you Sunday …’ And then there was a clatter of the phone being dropped, Fliss was telling Oscar not to lick his mango yogurt off the TV screen, and we got cut off.
I must admit, conversations like this make me view the super-cute baby clothes in Daniels in a whole different light – the kind that has me whooshing off to Pet’s Corner. Five seconds listening to life on Fliss’s sofa is enough to remind me crooning over the tartan velvet coats and diamanté dog collars is a whole lot safer. Even if they cost ten times more than the human versions they’re cheap at the price when you consider what they’re saving you from.
After that I took refuge in shopping for the castle and by the time Bill wafted back in again my online baskets were overflowing. I trotted out my favourite festive mantra, ‘You can never have too many candles, or ribbons …’ then tossed in a couple of kiddie ones just for the pleasure of seeing him shudder again, ‘… or fire guards or high chairs …’
It must have worked, because he pulled a face at the checkout totals, paid by one-click PayPal, then disappeared. I’d gone in armed with my strongest cinnamon candle, worried about how I’d cope with his scent when we were poring over the screen together, but as that bit turned out to be complete wishful thinking on my part, I never got to light it.
But this morning, in spite of the mix of dust and oil and wax jacket in the front of the Landy, as I watch his hands wrestling the steering wheel around the twisty country lanes between fields and hedges that are monochrome in the cold morning, there’s more. In fact the man-scent wafting my way is so delicious I’m already working on excuses to get into his bathroom to check out what it is he’s wearing. I know I’m taking an extended break from dating, and the women in Men’s Fragrances at Daniels are great at splashing them around. But if I ever spot a new one in the wild, I like to get it in my notebook for future reference. A boyfriend in my future definitely isn’t a priority. But in the unlikely event I did get one, decades down the line etc. etc. – please, oh please let him smell like the inside of this Landy cab does now – end of Fairy Godmother message. And the fastest way to make that happen is to find out what Bill’s aftershave bottle looks like.
I might have to fall back on the doggy choc trick – throw one into Bill’s bathroom then dive in after Merwyn to drag him out when he chases it. I’m working on the finer detail of the plan, when I notice Bill’s braking, and glancing over at me.
‘We’re here, you might like to wake up.’
Shit. I try for nonchalant and remind myself not to breathe in too deeply. ‘Just thinking about delicious smells.’
‘Like pine needles?’ The rough piece of board with a spray painted Christmas tree outline and an arrow we’re trundling past and a very bumpy lane that finally ends in a car park full of potholes suggest his mate in the trade is as cut price as he is. Merwyn’s bobbing up and down as we stop, then as I open the door he sees the puddles and he looks doubtful.
‘Your call, Merwyn.’ I shout to Bill behind the pickup. ‘He doesn’t like getting his paws muddy.’
Bill’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘Except when he’s burying my shorts, then apparently he doesn’t give a damn.’
‘Would you like me to order you some more?’ I’ve no idea why I’m offering, the way Bill left them lying around, he was asking for them to be run off with.
‘You’re okay, they weren’t my best ones.’
‘Definitely too much information.’ As I clamp my hands on my ears Merwyn decides he’ll join us after all, and jumps into my arms.
From the way Bill’s rubbing his hands and taking long strides down the car park he’s either wanting to get this over with or he’s taking charge here. Or possibly both. ‘So are you looking for Norway spruce, Nordmann fir, or something more exotic? It’s all about the needle drop, you do know that?’
As Merwyn and I pick our way between the puddles I have to ask. ‘So when did you become the expert?’
There’s no crack in his confidence. ‘Since I phoned up to arrange it. We pick up the smaller ones here, I’ll pay for them all when they bring the big one for the hallway. So do you want one more or two?’
I’m hoping he’s joking. ‘If you’ve sorted the huge one, we need a medium one for the kitchen, two more for the chill out spaces, some for the tower rooms and then another ten for the bedrooms.’
‘That many? Really?’ Bill’s horrified expression matches his squawk.
‘They’re the fastest way to get the festive feel.’ I’m taking this to him. ‘Unless you’ve come up with a better idea?’
As expected, he doesn’t take me up on that one. ‘No doubt you want the fancy ones?’
This time I’m thinking of the minuscule budget and the bigger picture. ‘A tree is a tree. Let’s get as many as we can of the cheapest.’ I know he’s being tight, but if they’re freshly cut the plain ones will easily last us until Boxing Day. ‘Unless you want them to double up for your New Year lets too?’
‘Hell, no.’ He strides further along the yard, to where there are trees propped against the fence.
‘That way there will be more cash to splash on the rest of the deccies.’
‘You mean this doesn’t end here?’ He just gives a disgusted head shake. ‘Hurry up and grab them then, I haven’t got all day.’ He picks up two by their tips and swings around.
‘Not so fast.’ I take in his look of incomprehension. ‘You can’t just take any, they’re not all the same.’
‘You just said, a tree is a tree.’
I’m enjoying breaking it to him. ‘We have to choose the prettiest ones. Let’s start with the smaller ones for the bedrooms. Hold them up one by one, turn them around, and I’ll say yes or no.’ I have to admit I’m loving how much he’s hating this.
By the time I’ve carefully selected sixteen trees the pile is huge. Bill looked like he lost the will to live some time ago, but I’m flying because suddenly Christmas feels so much closer. I slip Merwyn’s lead over my wrist and wrestle as many trees into my arms as I can, which turns out to be three.
Bill’s staring at me. ‘But you don’t have to …’
‘I lug stuff around all the time at work, I’ve got this.’ It’s not a technique that would comply with any of Daniels’ manual handling guidelines, but hey!, this is Cornwall, it’s the holidays, rules are made for breaking. It’s always great to shock guys who assume women can’t lift anything heavier than a lipstick and by the time I set off I’m pretty damn pleased with myself. I’m half way back to the car park when I hear Bill’s shout.
‘I-v-yyyy …’
My mouth is pretty full of pine needles. ‘What now?’
‘You’re going the wrong way.’
Unbelievable. He comes out with the name Fraser fir, and now he knows it all. I can’t see past the branches, but I spin around anyway. ‘Wrong way how?’ Of course I’m going the right way, when I looked three seconds ago the Landy was still in the same place.
I’m not the only one who’s confused as I hesitate. Below the branches Merwyn’s on his fully extended lead running backwards and forwards in ever crazier circles. Then I try to take a step, and my foot won’t move because Merwyn’s lead is tightening around my ankles. ‘What the heck …?’
One minute I’m storming down the car park, the next I’m wobbling. It’s one of those moments when I know I’m going to fall, I can feel myself toppling, and there’s nothing I can do except tilt, and follow the trees forwards.
‘Waaaaaahhhhh …!!!!’
The next thing I know, there are pine needles sticking up my nose, my body’s rocking on a springy cushion of spruce and my legs are sticking up behind me, and I suspect they must be waving wildly too. And Merwyn is next to my ankles, still attached, and barking like a mad thing.
‘Bill!!! Help!!!!’ I’m yelling and trying to kick, but my legs are stuck. ‘Come and h-e-e-e-e-l-p me!!!’
There’s a low laugh behind me. ‘Hold it there, I’ll just get a few more pictures.’
What? ‘Forget effing pictures, come and untie me NOW!!!’ I push spikes out of my mouth, unstick my hat from the prickles that are pulling it and drag it down as far as I can over my face. As I roll sideways off the branches, if it wasn’t for the freezing water seeping around my bottom I’d be hot to the point of exploding.
Bill’s laughing so much he’s staggering towards me. ‘One more. Sitting in that puddle next to your tree pile, that’s the best one of all.’ Then he slides his phone into his pocket and holds out his hand. ‘What?’ He’s trying to look innocent.
‘Taking pictures, instead of helping me up, that’s what.’ Seriously, if he doesn’t stop the doubled up laughing soon he’s in for a swipe on the head with a Nordmann spruce.
‘You’re the one who wants stuff to load to Instagram. That sequence is pure gold.’
I’m despairing at how little clue he has. ‘That’s nothing like what Libby wants.’
He pulls me to my feet even though by now, obviously, I’d rather he hadn’t. He’s still laughing, watching me as I pull stiff soaking denim off my legs.
‘What, don’t tell me your boxers are muddy too, would you like me to order you some more?’
I take a deep breath and give him my best glare. ‘Have you finished?’
